Ride or Die

by Solomon Jones

  She listened to him carefully. And when he finished pouring out his soul, she gently reminded him that nothing was an excuse for failure. No one was to blame for what he’d done. He could only control his here and now, because his past was already behind him. If he remembered those few truths and trusted God to reveal the rest, he would always be able to succeed.

  He took her messages to heart, and used them to rebuild himself. First he found a job. Then he opened a bank account. He enrolled in a course to complete his GED. But on the day he passed the test and applied for admission to community college, he came home to find Aunt Annie stretched out on the floor, dead of a heart attack.

  Her death made him bitter. He felt that she’d abandoned him, and he vowed to never love again. He couldn’t live in the house she’d left him in her will, not with such anger in his heart. Because even in death, she’d see what he had become, and she would be ashamed.

  But a funny thing happened when he returned to the streets to lose himself in the vicious rules of the drug game. He broke the only promise that he’d ever made to himself. He allowed his heart to feel.

  He’d seen her for the first time walking past him as he shopped in Center City. She smiled at him, and something in him changed. It didn’t matter that she was different from any woman he’d ever known. Nor did it matter that he was angry. He spoke to her, and she spoke back. They sat down on a bench on Market Street and talked until the sun went down, and there was no one left on the street but them.

  She understood his pain, knew it like she’d experienced it for herself. He loved her because, in her empathy, she made that pain go away. Even now, as he prepared to return the favor, he marveled at the mark she’d left on his soul.

  Turning on the bathroom light, he finished undressing, removed clippers and shaving cream from the cabinet, and examined himself in the mirror. His face was bruised slightly, and his locks were matted. But his body was sleek and hard, just like he needed it to be.

  Before the day was out, he would have to do battle for her. And after the battle was over, she would take his hard, sleek body for herself.

  Lieutenant Lynch left the Andersons to go to the third floor of police headquarters for a meeting with the mayor and Acting Commissioner Dilsheimer about the search for Jamal and the missing girl.

  He didn’t normally leave witnesses and complainants in his office while he tended to police matters. But this was no ordinary day.

  News crews were stationed outside the building, getting hourly updates from public affairs officers. Rank-and-file police officers were on the streets, unleashing their rage on anyone who even remotely fit Jamal Nichols’s description. And ordinary people like the Andersons were caught in the middle, trying desperately to make sense of it all.

  After thirty minutes in Lynch’s office, they’d come no closer to learning anything about their daughter’s whereabouts. But they were sure of one thing: sitting in a closed room with their grief nestled between them wouldn’t bring Keisha back.

  “I’m ready to go,” John Anderson said, getting up from his seat. “You coming?”

  “For what?” Sarah said, staring absently into space. “What is there for me to go home to?”

  John wanted to comfort his wife, but he didn’t know how. “Look, Sarah—”

  “No, you look,” she said, whipping her head around to face him. “Don’t try to preach to me, like you do to those people down at the church. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Why not?” he asked sarcastically. “Don’t you believe in God anymore?”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding her head slowly. “I believe in God. I just don’t believe in you.”

  “It’s not about me,” he said sorrowfully.

  “Then who is it about, John? Me? Was I with Keisha when she disappeared? Was I the one who was supposed to be watching out for her?”

  John was tired of the accusations. He was tired of the guilt. But most of all, he was tired of his wife.

  “Yes, Sarah,” he said, angrily. “You were supposed to be watching out for her. Not just this morning, but all her life. That’s the only thing I ever asked you to do. Raise our daughter.

  “But you didn’t do that, did you? You were too busy feeling sorry for yourself. Our daughter needed you, and you weren’t there to guide her.”

  Sarah sucked her teeth. “Look who’s talking,” she said bitterly.

  “Yeah, Sarah, look who’s talking! Take a real good look, and remember what I look like! Because you may not ever see me again.”

  John stood up and walked out the door, slamming it behind him.

  As he walked down the hallway, a homicide detective was getting off the elevator, and called after him.

  “Wait a minute, Reverend Anderson!” he shouted. “I can get somebody to give you a ride!”

  “I don’t want a ride,” John said, calling over his shoulder. “I want my daughter.”

  Jamal dragged Keisha by the hand as they entered the back of the abandoned factory through a broken door. They ran to the front of the building and knelt by the tin-covered windows.

  He pulled back the corner of one of the window tins, and daylight splashed across their faces as they watched a dozen police cars arrive on the scene.

  “You ain’t have to shoot him,” Jamal whispered.

  Keisha was in a state of shock, her back against the wall as she stared into the darkness. “I know.”

  “So why did you?” he asked.

  She watched shadows and sunlight play against his sleek black skin.

  “I did it for you,” she answered, looking at him through a haze of tears.

  He held out his hand. “Gimme the gun,” he said.

  “I dropped it in the alley,” she whispered.

  Jamal pulled his hand back slowly.

  “They gon’ find your prints on it,” he said.

  Keisha swallowed hard in an effort to calm herself. “Then I guess we can’t stop now,” she said resolutely.

  “Yeah,” he said, staring down at her with a mixture of anxiety and grief. “I guess we can’t.”

  Keisha watched the conflict contorting his face. “What is it, Jamal? I thought this is what you wanted.”

  “It is,” he said, taking her hand in his. “But I ain’t want it like this.”

  “Like what?”

  He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

  “We killed people, Keisha,” he said. “Ain’t no turnin’ back from that.”

  “Who said I wanted to turn back?” she said, staring at him defiantly.

  He shook his head. “If it was just me, it wouldn’t matter. I can take care o’ myself. But when they find that gun in the alley and put the pieces together, your life will be over, just like mine. And I can’t have that.”

  Keisha paused as she realized what he was saying. She wanted him to say it again. So she moved closer until their faces almost touched.

  “Why can’t you have that?” she asked, her voice low and husky.

  Jamal felt his mouth begin to water as he looked down into her beautiful eyes.

  “’Cause I love you,” he said, almost in a whisper.

  She touched his lips with her finger, and in that moment, they both knew the depths of the feelings that had been brewing since the long-ago summer when their love was kissed by sunsets.

  It was real. More real than anything they’d ever felt.

  “I love you, too,” she said softly. “I always have.”

  Their lips touched, gently at first. Then their tongues danced with one another. But even as Keisha surrendered to the moment, Jamal’s mind returned to the streets, and the net that was taking shape around them.

  As much as he wanted to feel her softness against him, as much as he wanted to take her for himself, as much as he wanted to show her love in its physical form, he knew that they only had a few minutes to get out.

  Just as he pulled away from her, they heard the sound of footsteps walking through the factory. Jamal held
his finger to his lips, signaling for Keisha to remain quiet. He pushed the tin back into place, shrouding the factory in darkness.

  And then he reached down for his gun.

  The tall one wore a scarf to hide her matted hair. Her skin was dry, because the crack pipe had sucked the moisture from it. But even in the factory’s dim light, one could see that her face had been beautiful once, back when her heart could feel something other than contempt.

  In the days before cheap crack and pure heroin flooded the streets of Philadelphia’s Badlands, she’d fetched a pretty penny for her services. Now she was just like the rest of them. Five dollars could buy almost anything, including what was left of her dignity.

  The girl who crossed the factory floor behind her was slower, both physically and mentally. And she was young. Neither her face nor her body had ever been attractive. But she knew how to please a man. Only recently had she been taught how to please herself.

  “You okay, baby?” the tall one asked as the shorter one followed her to a dark corner where the factory’s long-dead machinery stood.

  “I’m all right,” said the girl, her high-pitched voice quivering in the darkness. “I just ain’t never seen no bodies before. ’Specially no cop’s.”

  The tall one reached down and held the shorter one like a man would hold a woman.

  “That’s why I be tryin’ to tell you to watch yourself out here,” she said, stroking her hair.

  The short one began to tremble as she recalled the sight of the two dead men they’d seen in the alley. “That coulda been one of us out there dead like that,” she said softly.

  “But it wasn’t,” said the tall one. “Now just relax, baby. Let mommy make it better for you.”

  There was a flicking sound and a lighter’s flame illuminated their faces as they lit their pipe. If they hadn’t been engrossed in the hiss and crackle of the crack rock, perhaps they would have felt the eyes watching them. But as it was, they could only feel the high, and the hot rush that it brought to their loins.

  As Jamal pointed his gun at them, Keisha looked on in disbelief at the two scantily clad prostitutes.

  They were groping one another as they passed the crack pipe between them. Their moans rose along with the smoke as they were consumed by a passion that they never shared with their tricks.

  While the crackling sound of the burning drug echoed softly through the room, their hands touched spots reserved for one another while their bodies writhed to the rhythm of searching fingers, lips, and tongues.

  When they extinguished the lighter’s flame and gave themselves totally to each other, Jamal crept across the factory’s floor.

  They heard the unmistakable double click as he chambered a round in the nine-millimeter. And then they heard his voice.

  “Don’t scream and you won’t get hurt,” he said. His tone was low and menacing.

  The one who was holding the lighter dropped it. Her girlfriend gasped. They were more surprised than afraid. The Badlands, after all, was a place where the high was worth more than life itself. They’d just seen the evidence of it in the alley.

  “We only got a couple rocks left,” the tall one whispered quickly. “Just take ’em. We ain’t got no money.”

  Jamal picked up the lighter that they’d dropped on the floor, flicked it, and held the flame between them.

  “I don’t want your dope,” he said as Keisha watched from a few feet away.

  He lowered the flame and pressed the gun against the tall one’s head. “I want you to take off your clothes.”

  The crime scene was a flurry of activity. Fire Rescue vehicles and a van from the medical examiner’s office were there, along with dozens of police cars, both marked and unmarked.

  Only one of the officers on the scene sat still, on the steel bumper of a wagon.

  “MacAleer!” the sergeant called out to him from across the street.

  “Yeah, Sarge,” MacAleer answered, while pulling a mask of grief over his fear.

  “I’m sorry about Hickey,” the sergeant said as he sat down next to him. “I know you two worked together for a couple of years.”

  “Yeah,” the red-haired cop said, looking up into the sergeant’s eyes. “He was a good cop.”

  They were quiet for a moment, reflecting on the deaths that had rocked the department in the last few hours.

  “We ran the VIN on that Buick that was sitting near the alley,” the sergeant said. “It came up registered to Joseph Barnes. Turns out he’s done some work for Frank Nichols. Beat a murder case about two years ago when the witness had an accident.”

  MacAleer began to grow nervous. “Is that so?”

  “Yeah. Crime Scene guys took a look at the scene and they’re not sure Barnes was the shooter. Just looking at the car—you know, with the doors open and all—they’re pretty sure somebody was with him.”

  “Well, I didn’t see anyone else leaving the scene,” MacAleer said.

  The sergeant stood up. “Lieutenant Lynch is on his way down from Homicide. You can run through the whole thing with him. Shouldn’t take long.”

  MacAleer sighed and looked away from the sergeant to scan the faces in the crowd of prostitutes gathered at the edge of the crime scene.

  There were two new faces that he didn’t recognize. One was tall and dark, and like the other transvestites who turned tricks along with the women on the strip, his hair was tied back with a scarf. The other was short, with a smooth brown face, honey-colored eyes, and an outfit that barley covered her essentials.

  Keisha began to back away from the crowd as the cop licked her body with his eyes. She was wearing the skimpy outfit that they’d taken from one of the prostitutes in the house, and her thick legs and round hips were bursting forth like ripened fruit. She was embarrassed. And Jamal was afraid.

  He’d wrapped one of the prostitute’s scarves around his head, to hide his dreadlocks. He’d buttoned down his shirt and tied it at the bottom to reveal his flat, hard stomach. The pocketbook he’d taken from the prostitute contained his gun. The jeans he wore were his own.

  The outfit wouldn’t hide his identity for long, even in a crowd. And the prostitutes they’d left in the house would soon break the makeshift bonds that Jamal had tied around their hands, mouths, and feet.

  “Don’t look back,” Jamal said as the two of them moved away from the crowd and walked toward the corner of the block. “Just follow me.”

  Keisha couldn’t have looked back if she’d wanted to. She was filled with a fear she’d never known, and an uncertainty that left her almost completely crippled. That is, until she glanced at Jamal.

  The tied-up shirt fit awkwardly on his lean, tight physique. And the head scarf gave him the theatrical look of a drag queen.

  “You know you look crazy, right?” she asked, grinning nervously as they turned the corner.

  “Not as crazy as I’d look in prison,” he said, absently scanning the street. “Or dead.”

  His words were sobering, and her grin rapidly disappeared.

  “You see that car?” he asked as he spotted a blue Dodge Neon riding slowly down the block.

  “Yeah,” Keisha said, watching the middle-aged driver trying to wave her over to his car.

  “Go over there and talk to him,” Jamal said. “Get him to open the door.”

  Keisha looked at Jamal as if she didn’t want to do it.

  “Just say, ‘What’s up?’” Jamal said quickly. “He’ll do the rest. Now hurry up ’fore he drive away.”

  Jamal crossed the street, leaving Keisha to her own devices.

  The car slowed down and stopped as Keisha approached. She was luscious, even in a soiled miniskirt and halter top. And with her ample cleavage on display, she was downright irresistible.

  “What’s up?” she said as the driver pulled up and stopped in front of her.

  The man was heavy, and his face was covered with sweat. His beady eyes darting to and fro, it was clear that he was uneasy. He knew that she was too beauti
ful for these streets. And with an incident around the corner drawing so many police to the area, he wondered if she was part of some sort of sting.

  “You ain’t no cop, is you?” he said, stammering slightly.

  She shook her head and tried to give him a reassuring smile.

  The man watched her for a few seconds more. And though it was clear that he still had lingering doubts about her, lust overcame sound judgment, and he reached over to unlock his door.

  “Get in,” he said gruffly.

  Before the words were even out of his mouth, Jamal, who had crept over to the side of the car, leaped into the front seat holding the gun.

  “Hey, what are you—”

  “Shut up,” Jamal said, pulling the bucket seat forward to allow Keisha to get in the back.

  The driver’s beady eyes looked from one of them to the other, and his face began to tremble as Jamal shut the door and locked it.

  “Don’t hurt me,” he said, holding his hands up in the air.

  “Put your hands down and drive,” Jamal said calmly.

  The man hesitated for a moment, and Jamal jammed the gun into his ribs.

  “Now,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Go straight’til I tell you to turn. Not too fast.”

  The man did as he was told while looking back at Keisha.

  She refused to look at him. But as the driver rode past the block where a throng of police were gathered at the crime scene, she couldn’t help stealing a glance at Jamal.

  8

  When the cab Nola had taken from the Thirtieth Street Station pulled onto her block, there were police cars lined up outside her brownstone, plainclothes and uniformed officers were trotting up and down her steps, and her neighbors were peering out their windows, shaking their heads at the spectacle of it all.